Is that how you spell debacle?? I just ran Spell Check and it says it is okay ...
Anyway .... The whole DVD thing has been a real DEBACLE ....
We wanted the Master DVD ready to send to the printer by Monday May 8th ... it wasn't even near ready ... it still needed to be authored and menued and whatever else goes with that ... and the authoring menuing guy was ill .... (However .... the editting does look AWESOME!)
Tuesday May 16th rolls around ... they almost have it done ... Bob brings me a test copy to view ... over six hours of DVD to look at and I am still tutoring morning noon and night. Tom looks at it and there are TONS of problems with the menuing .... I mean TONS ... he writes 3 pages of critiques and changes and we email that back up to UNT. Bob and Greg worked on it when they could and tried to be finished by Friday May 19th ... but then they had a software glitch ... an error message which no one recognized .... Bob thought maybe it was too much info for one DVD ... maybe we should go to Two?? But when they tried two, the software still got hung up with the same error message .... and the software maker was offline all weekend upgrading their systems!!!
Finally!! Sunday night Greg works it out ... he has gone through the data piece by piece to try to find the problem and he finally locates it and is able to burn all the info onto one Double Layered DVD-9. ((Thanks Greg!!)) Bob brings it to us Monday (May 22) and once again we have to watch more than 6 hours of me ....
Meanwhile .... news about over 60,000 Juniors failing TAKS is on the front page of the Dallas Morning News .... and orders begin to come in!! I am happy ... but also feeling pressured ... we are still looking at a 7-10 workday turn around with the replicators and we have yet to get them the Master! Schools are wanting the DVD for Summer School starting June 6th.
Tom watched the DVD ... and it was STILL wrong. Not near the errors of before ... couldn't get to question #39 ... and questions #99 and 100 were out of sync with voice and video. We called Greg ... he fixed those things and a couple other things .... and got us another Master .... this one we couldn't even access TEST #2 .... and all the problems were menued wrong #11-#20!! And #99 and 100 were still out of sync ....!!!
By this time I am getting REALLY tired of watching myself teach TAKS problems!! We had to check each and every problem #1-100 to be sure the menuing was right .... be sure the Tests played through ... be sure it played on TV's and laptops!! Finally on Wednesday evening we get a Master that works perfectly .... Hurrah!!!
On Thursday May 25th we take the Double-Layered DVD-9 Master down to Tele-Print in Carrollton ... whom we had found through One Stop Media Shop. One-Stop had quoted us for 15, 10, 7, or 3-day turnaround time ... each getting more expensive the shorter the time. We hand the DVD to the saleman I had been dealing with (allan s.) and he just sets it aside like it is nothing ... he then proceeds to tell us that he doesn't think they can do Double-layered DVD-9's ... he needs to check with Danny Redd and Danny Redd isn't in at the moment. They had also agreed to shrinkwrap the booklets with the DVD's ... so we unloaded 14 boxes of booklets in their shipping bay.
And we walked out of there ...
We didn't sign anything ... they didn't ask for a down payment ... nothing .... and we still weren't sure they were going to be able to replicate the DVD!!
It felt very weird driving away from there ... Tom asked me if I was feeling better ... and I had to say "NO!! Not at all!"
A few hours later, I got an email from Allan S. saying that the cost was going to be $2.39@ and that in oder to for them to do DVD-9's they had to have a 10-15 business day turnaround time!! And that they wouldn't be able to shrinkwrap the booklets with the DVD's unless we also bought some heavy cardboard inserts (which would block the UPC code).
I was shocked and angry. That was 3 full weeks before I could get a DVD to the people wanting them and that was TOO LONG and way too much money for that long of a wait. It was nowhere near what One Stop Media Shop had quoted us.
So .... on Friday May 26th, Tom and I went back down to Tele-Print in Carrollton and asked to speak to the owner, Danny Redd. We told him that Allan's quote was way above the previous One-Stop quote and he preceeded to tell us all about the lawsuit he has against One-Stop blah, blah, blah .... which started after we got the quote from One-Stop. Fine, whatever .... we just want our DVD's replicated within 7 business days, forget the shrinkwrap, what will it cost ... he gives us a price .... we agree ... still no contract or down payment (even though I offered). We gathered up our 14 boxes of booklets and left ... still not feeling very good. We also realized that Danny Redd had been in his office the previous day when Allan told us he needed to talk to Danny and Danny wasn't there.
The story STILL isn't over ....
The following Wednesday ... I get a call from Tele-Print ... one of the Ladies in the front got a look at my artwork for the DVD sleeve before it got sent to the printer and she called me to say she didn't think the color looked right .... could I come down and look at it?
Boy was she right ... the fonts and background were all in tones of black and grey .... not the blues and greens they should be. They tried to blame it on La ... I wasn't buying that. They offered to go into her Corel files and change colors to make it look like it should .... at the cost of $85/hr .... (mind you ... the DVD was supposed to be 3 days into a 7 day turnaround ...) so I agreed. Later that evening I get an email charging me for 2 hours of work in Corel.
Thursday ... they call again ... come look at the artwork for the DVD sleeve .... I go down there ... the background is better ... but the fonts are all still black and grey!! It looks dreary and depressing instead of warm and friendly. I want my blues and greens!! I spend 2 hours down there trying to figure out what to do ... looking at "PanColors" and discussing what I want ...they tell me it will cost hours of work on Corel to get those colors like I want ... (mind you, they have had this artwork for over 4 weeks but they refused to look at it until I brought in a Master ... even though I offered to pay for them to go over the artwork weeks ago to be sure it was right).
Finally, in tears I am sad to say, I agree to let them use the artwork which featured blacks and greys ... I told them this was only 1000 DVD's out of a potential 60,000 ... and I would never consider using them again. I cried all the way home ... (once I start, I can't stop) .... and of course Tom saw that I was upset ...
We talked ... and Tom suggested we check with the man who printed the booklets to see if he could print DVD sleeves ... Tom called him and he said Yep! So I called Tele-Print and told them to hold off on printing the DVD sleeves while we checked out a local printer ...
Next thing I know I am getting an email from Tele-print telling me that Danny Redd thinks that I seem to be "impossible to make happy" ... so he is canceling our whole order!!! Canceling the DVD replication which is supposed to be more than 1/2 completed!
Aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhhhh .......!!!!!
Anyway ... I spent Friday (June 2nd) trying to find someone else who would replicate the DVD's ... and just duplicate 5 or so to fill the immediate orders. One Stop is going to do the replicating ... if Danny Redd doesn't like them ... they must be good .... I tried to get Greg to make 5 more copies for us ... but he has a busy weekend and following week ...
FINALLY .... on Saturday, Tom and I went to Office Depot and bought DVD copying software ... label maker software ... blank DVD's and jewel cases ... all of which cost us less than the 2 hours of Corel Draw from Tele-Print would have cost (which Danny didn't make me pay for... good ol' Danny). And today (Sunday) I burned DVD's and printed covers and disc art ... and now I have DVD's to send out ....
I am feeling MUCH better ....
Oh ... and the folks at Minuteman Press here in Lewisville ... what wonderful people! They took La's corel files and we sat there for about an hour and messed with colors until we got their printer to print out the colors I wanted .... they were so kind. And it looks like they will print the DVD sleeves for us. It was all about RGB color vs. CYMK color ... which I now kinda understand ... turns out ... for $99 upgrade Tele-Print could have used FULL-COLOR and we wouldn't have had any of these issues!!
